Shattered
by lalakkaayy
Summary: Everything happens for a reason. That's what people say. That's what she's tried to believe for a long time now. But this? No. There couldn't have been a reason for this.
1. Chapter 1: Definitely

A/N: So the inspiration for this story comes from -cue the snickering- Secret Life of the American Teenager. But it's alright, because the storyline is fantastic -though it's going to get very bumpy and emotional [fairwarning!]- and I'm really looking forward to writing it. Next chapter? Well you'll get a wedding and a surprise you may actually be expecting :P  
>Hope you like it!<br>-

Chapter 1-

"Do we have to go to school today? I mean, we are getting married tonight." Santana smirked from where she was still lying in bed.

Puck grinned, though his back was turned to her where he sat at the edge of the bed and she couldn't see it, "Babe, we've been through this. The honeymoon happens _after _the wedding."

"Oh believe me Puckerman, you ain't getting any honeymoon. Or did you miss the giant bulge in my stomach, what which is your fault, by the way." The latina mumbled, running her hand subconsciously over her baby belly.

It'd been near eight months now since Santana had found out she was pregnant. A year and a half before, when her dad had finally been arrested for domestic violence against her, she'd moved in to the small, one bedroom apartment she and Puck now shared. He'd always promised to take care of her, starting way back when they were both six years old. He'd kept his promise even up until now. As soon as her dad had been taken away, he had offered to take her in. He was already living on his own, and he knew that she wouldn't be able to handle living by herself in the house that her father's tirade had taken place in. Pregnancy hadn't even crossed her mind the numerous amounts of times they'd hooked up since moving in together. How many times had they had sex with each other even before living under the same roof? At first they weren't even dating. It was after about two months of the on again, off again sex routines that Puck finally decided he wanted to have a relationship with her. Again. Since it wasn't technically the first time they'd dated.

Although they sometimes fought –Santana had been pretty sure on more than one occasion that he was totally going to end up throwing her out of the house- somehow things just worked with them. Maybe it was the fact that he'd always been there for her from the very beginning, and vice versa. When she'd been three weeks late for her period, she told herself it was only stress. Finals for the end of the semester were coming up, Cheerios had a big competition, Sectionals for Glee were around the corner and she had a big solo. She totally passed it for stress, until she really thought about it. Her latex allergy meant they didn't use condoms. She'd forgotten to take her pill for a couple days before hand. The timing fit for her to be pregnant, but she still refused to believe she actually was. She was a junior in high school, she was only seventeen, she couldn't be pregnant, it wasn't a possibility for her.

It wasn't until Puck woke up to find her on the bathroom floor of their apartment, throwing up, that he'd finally told her she needed to get a test. Six different tests showing her the little pink plus sign seemed to do the trick. There was obviously no avoiding the fact that she was pregnant when that many tests told her she was. At first they'd had no idea what they were going to do. Neither one of them was ready to have a baby, and yet neither one of them wanted to give up a baby that was _theirs _either. After a lot of arguing and 'what if's, they'd decided that they'd make it work somehow, keeping the baby. With that thought in mind, five months into her pregnancy, Puck had proposed to Santana. It was a little different, being real and not with a ring pop in the sandbox at the playground, but even then when it wasn't a candy ring being put on her finger, she'd accepted.

Puck turned to look at Santana –his _fiancé_- as he finished tying his shoe, his grin still in place. Even eight months pregnant, out of that short-skirted Cheerios uniform, she was still hot. Maybe that was just his biased opinion of her, but the fact of the matter was, even everyday as she got lazy to do her make-up, or just wanted to wear sweats to school, he didn't get tired of looking at her.

"I like the bulge in your stomach." He said, leaning closer to her to kiss her gently on the lips. "And I love you." He said, then moved down to kiss her stomach, "And you, you little girl inside there, I love you too."

Santana laughed and shook her head as she playfully pushed him away from her. She rested her hands on top of her stomach and smiled.

"She's moving around a lot today, I feel like she's excited. It's like she knows we're getting married tonight." She said.

"Or she's ready to get out of there. I can't imagine it's as cozy as it was when she was the size of a quarter." Puck joked.

Santana rolled her eyes and hauled herself up into a sitting position. She really didn't want to go to school. While she'd grown used to the way everyone's eyes focused on her in the hallways –not even just because of her pregnant waddle now, but because everyone knew she was getting married on top of keeping a baby at seventeen- she really didn't feel like dealing with it today. Today was supposed to be a good day, a happy day. It wasn't the traditional wedding with the white dress and tux or any of that, but when had anything she and Puck done ever been traditional. Puck leaned up to give her one last kiss before standing up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

"I'm going to safely assume you won't be leaving that bed until you absolutely have to." He said, a small smirk tugging up the corners of his mouth.

"You'd assume correct." She answered matter of factly. "I'll take a Bridal prep day."

"Well I have to go to school, so I will see you this evening, right before we go to the courthouse to tie the knot." He winked.

Santana grinned coyly, "Can't wait."

With one last kiss goodbye for the day, Puck left the apartment to head for school. Most days even when she didn't want to go, she went only because she didn't like to be left alone. Even now she could feel the absence of Puck in the house, though he'd only just left. She placed her hands on either side of her stomach and looked down at it.

"Now you miss thing, no making Mommy super hormonal tonight okay? I don't want to cry. It'll give your daddy something to hold over me the rest of my life."

At first, she'd been really uncomfortable with the idea of talking to her stomach, of thinking there was a baby in there at all. It was the first time she'd seen Puck eyeing the growing bulge a couple months into the pregnancy that she'd decided maybe talking to it wasn't such a bad idea. Then when the appointment had come that they'd found out the baby was a girl, it became even easier.

Losing her mom at nine years old had never been easy for Santana. How was she supposed to get through her teenage years without her mom? That was where Puck had really stepped in to be there for her. The nights she'd been afraid of her dad's alcoholic and violent tendencies, it was Puck's house she ran to. And he'd always been there to take care of her. As much as she always wished that he mom could have been around through everything, to see her accomplish the things that she had, she knew –as much as she hated the stupid phrase in the first place- that everything happened for a reason. She knew that Puck would never in a million years do anything to their daughter like her father had done to her, and she also knew that she had to be the best mother she could be for this little girl she was carrying, because she knew it was what her mom would want, having not been able to be there for her daughter.

Tana sighed and tapped her fingers gently on her bump for a moment before turning to the side of the bed, hanging her legs off the side of it. She looked down at herself. A month from now, and she'd be having a baby. She and Puck would be parents, and there'd be a baby girl for them to love and take care of. Her brown eyes moved to the small crib in the corner of the room that they'd deemed the 'nursery' for now since they didn't have another room for her just yet. Someday though. Someday they'd make things even more perfect than she already felt they were, but for now, the little family they had going would be enough for her.

School was entirely way too lame without having Santana to shoot flirty glances at in the hallways during passing periods. He was glad she was taking the day off, even though he missed having her at school with him. She was looking a lot more tired these days. Sure, being pregnant had gotten her off the Cheerios, and she didn't do a whole lot of dancing in Glee club because standing for long periods of time at this point made her back hurt, but something always had her looking exhausted. He had no idea what being pregnant was like –obviously- and he'd almost had the thought to ask Quinn what it'd been like for her in the last stages of her pregnancy, but much like his pregnant fiancé, he didn't like dwelling on the fact that that incident sophomore year had actually occurred. Yeah, he and Quinn were all fine and dandy and friends now, but the whole situation that went down between them was better left as a 'let's pretend that never happened' kind of scenario.

When lunchtime rolled around, Puck was half tempted to go off campus to go home and check on Santana, maybe even bring her some food, but he knew that if he went home now, he wouldn't end up coming back for his last two classes. Since when had he actually started caring about missing classes at school? He did need to graduate though, to get a job and being able to support his family not, he'd definitely need more than just a pool cleaning business. Graduating high school was a step toward something better than that. He was standing at his locker, phone in hand ready to send a simple 'I love you, hope your day is going alright' text to Santana when a certain blonde couple friends of his came up to him.

"Where's Santana? Is she okay? Is everything okay with the baby? How come she's not here?" Quinn asked in a rush.

"Whoa there, calm down Blondie, just because she's not here doesn't mean anything's wrong. She just didn't want to come to school today. She called it, uhh, Bridal preparation day or something like that." Puck replied, hitting send on the typed out message.

Sam laughed lightly, "She's been freaking out all morning, thinking something happened."

Quinn elbowed Sam gently before turning a frown on Puck, "I still can't believe you're getting married without people there. I mean, especially us."

"It's what we want. We just need it to be legal, we don't need to make some big showcase out of it." Puck shrugged, "Besides, San didn't want to wear a dress, she said it'd make her feel too… big."

"Well did you tell her it _wouldn't _make her look big?" Sam asked, clearly having taken a lesson that Quinn must have taught him.

"Look dude, even if I did that, she probably would have slapped me. She knows when I'm lying to her. She'd rather me tell her she looks like a whale than she's not fat."

"Sounds like Santana." Quinn noted.

Puck ignored the quiet chatter that Sam and Quinn were having in front of him as he checked his phone when it vibrated. _'Its going great. We're taking a bubble bath.' _He smirked just slightly to himself, continuing to ignore the conversation at hand, though the words baby shower stuck out for just an instant. _'As if I wasn't tempted enough to come home already._' He hit send and looked back up at Sam.

"Does she ever just, you know, calm the hell down?" he laughed lightly, motioning toward Quinn.

Sam chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "Well…"

Quinn scowled, giving both of them her signature Quinn Fabray glare before taking off down the hallway. Puck raised his eyebrows.

"And here I thought Santana was easily upset."

"Yeah, I'm not sure what's up with Quinn. I think she's just really excited." Sam shrugged.

"Sure has a weird way of showing it." Puck mumbled, checking his phone as he got another message.

'_Nuh uh. Groom's not allowed to see the bride before the wedding. You left the house, now that rule's in place.' _Puck rolled his eyes. Of course she would say that. They always were the two that tried to hold things over each other's heads, even the smallest of things. _'Tease.' _He hit send and looked back up at Sam. Sam gave him a half smile.

It was kind of strange, how close of friends he and Sam had ended up. For the longest time he and Finn had been best friends. Of course that had all kind of changed when the unmentionable of all unmentionables happened, but they'd both more or less worked through their issues. They were on okay terms. They were still in football and glee club together and talked every now and again, but it was different. Now it was Sam who Puck always referred to as 'my boy' when getting defensive about something. 'Sam's my boy, he's got my back.' Sam hadn't really expected their friendship to skyrocket the way that it had either, they really were kind of opposites. Puck being the stud and the 'bad boy', Sam being the nerdy guy who was secretly really romantic too.

"You know, I'm really happy for you and Santana, getting married and having a baby and all." Sam shrugged, "I know, that's kind of a chick thing to say, but it's exciting for you."

"Believe me, I get the excitement. At first it was all nerves, but then I got over it. Now all I can think about is she's gonna be my wife, and the mother of my baby." He replied.

"So you're all ready for the wedding tonight? Totally stoked?"

Puck didn't answer right away, only because his phone went off in his hand and he looked down to check the message. _'But you love me.' _He smiled –a real smile, not the cocky grin or the sensual smirk, an actual smile- and texted back the same answer that he gave Sam out loud.

"Definitely."


	2. Chapter 2: Promise

A/N- It excites me that I've already got people actually interested in this story, so thank you for the reviews and the favoriting, it means a lot! This chapter is the lead up to something… I can't tell you. You might be able to guess. Either way, you'll see soon enough. Hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 2-

"This is it." Santana said to her reflection, one hand braced against her back and the other resting on her stomach.

If anyone had asked her at the beginning of high school what she wanted the whole experience to be like, she would have said the farthest thing possible from being pregnant and getting married at seventeen –almost eighteen, she reminded herself. Yet there she stood, just a couple more weeks until her due date, wearing the lacy, white maternity top she'd bought with Quinn when they'd gone shopping and a pair of black jeans, ready to be both a wife and a mom. She'd refused to wear a traditional wedding dress. First off, by no means did they have that kind of money for a dress and flowers and all the other insanities that her blonde best friend had insisted they needed to have for a wedding, and secondly, she had to admit that she was nervous for Puck to even see her in what she was in now, no matter how cute the top was. It didn't matter how many times he told her she was beautiful, she was still self conscious. That used to be a part of herself she could shut off, or at the very least ignore to the best of her ability, but baby hormones did wonders on the normal scheme of things.

She was standing in the women's restroom at the courthouse, Puck was waiting outside for her. She imagined he couldn't be thrilled with her need to go to the bathroom right as they were about to go into the office to get married –_married_- but the baby for some reason seemed to enjoy using her bladder as some kind of trampoline. Santana turned from side to side, examining the bump in her stomach from as many angles as she could, then she sighed, tucking one of her dark curls behind her ear. She was nervous, and clearly her nerves were getting to the baby too, because little Faith was kicking up a storm. The latina laughed quietly and put her hand on her stomach.

"It's okay Faithy, let's just go do this thing." She said softly.

The adoration she found in Puck's eyes when he looked at her upon leaving the restroom was indescribable. It still got to her sometimes that it was her that he looked at that way. She'd never admit that out loud, but it was true. He could have had anyone, but he'd stuck by his childhood promise to be there for her. He smiled, looking dashing in a long-sleeved black button up with a red tie, and held his hand out to her. She took it, giving his a squeeze as they approached the judge's office. If she had any change of heart or mind, she needed to speak now, but she knew that this was what she wanted. Even if there hadn't been a baby and it had been years down the line, she knew that someday she would have married Noah Puckerman. Because they were meant for each other.

The 'ceremony' was different than she'd been expecting, but then she'd never actually seen a courthouse wedding, so she hadn't been exactly sure how it was supposed to go. Apparently even in the court system, the vows were more or less the same, but because Puck was Jewish, things were different than the traditional. They did have to say all that 'through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer' stuff she'd heard all the time on TV and stuff. When it came time for Puck to slide the ring on her finger and say his 'I do', she found that she was crying, despite the smile that wasn't going anywhere from her face. Her hands shook slightly as she slid the ring onto his finger, and she could hear his quiet chuckle as she muttered to herself about needing to get a grip. The judge read her her vows and she held contact with the hazel eyes that she hoped their daughter was born with as she listened until the judge asked the question she was waiting for.

"…As long as you both shall live?"

"I do." She said, her voice quiet, but an octave higher than moral through her happy tears.

Puck's smile grew and he gave both of her hands a squeeze.

"I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Noah Puckerman. You may kiss the bride."

His arms quickly made their way to being wrapped around her waist and pulling him closer to him. Their lips pressed together in that familiar way she never wanted to lose. One of her hands rested on the side of his face, the other tightly grasping onto the front of his shirt. They were officially married now. Well they had a couple papers to sign, but it was basically a done deal already. She was now Santana Maria Puckerman. And soon enough they'd have little Faith Puckerman. They'd be a real family. Reluctantly, she let go of him, pulling the kiss apart so that they could do the paper signings they needed to before going home. Part of her wished that she wasn't pregnant so that they could have a normal honeymoon, but another part of her knew that even when the baby was there with them, he'd end up making it up to her at some point.

The judge already had the paperwork laid out on the edge of the desk for them to sign. Signing her last name Puckerman was going to be a new concept, but she managed to do it on the marriage papers with a smile. When the two walked out of the office, hand in hand, she knew things were right. They were married now, their daughter was on the way, they would be going home with each other to spend the night together now. Everything was perfect, the way she'd always seen it in her head and wanted it. Of course, she'd always imagined they were a few years older, but what did that matter at this point?

The drive home was filled with a comfortable silence that was only interrupted every once in a while when Santana giggled at the amount of moving Faith was doing inside her. The little girl certainly had a lot of energy. It was obvious already they were going to have a handful, but a handful that they would love. Puck came around to her side of the car to open her door for her when they got back to the apartment, and she smiled widely as she took the hand he held out to her. Standing up was getting to be more and more of an effort as the days grew closer to the pregnancy term being up. She pushed her car door closed and followed him inside.

"You." He said before turning around to kiss her gently on the lips, "My beautiful wife, are going to sit right here." He led her to the couch and had her sit then leaned in to kiss her again, "And I'm going to go get you jello." He smiled and kissed her once again, "Because I know how much you love it right now." His smile turned into the tiniest hint of a smirk as he kissed her one more time before turning to go into the kitchen.

Santana laughed and shook her head as she looked after him. It wasn't the traditional wedding cake that came with a wedding reception, but then there was no reception either, or traditional wedding itself for that matter. Besides, green jello was definitely on the top of the list of her pregnancy cravings. That, pickles, and apple juice. At least she hadn't gotten anything weird. She'd heard of pregnant women that liked things like tacos with peanut butter and other such things that made her almost want to gag. Puck came back into the room from the kitchen, a plate stacked with green jello squares balanced on the palm of his hand. He grinned at her before pulling up a chair to sit in front of where she sat on the couch.

"Here." He said, holding up one of the squares to feed to her.

She smirked a little bit and leaned forward so that he could put the jello square into her mouth. She made sure to do an efficient cleaning job of his fingers in the process too, something that made his eyes narrow and his grin grow. He lifted another square off the plate and this one Santana took from him with her hand, popping it in her mouth and holding her hand out to him. He slowly sucked what was left of the gelatin off of her thumb and forefinger, then turned her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist. He continued slowly trailing kisses up the inside of her forearm. Santana didn't have a lot of patience though.

"Come here." She mumbled, tugging on the tie he was still wearing and bringing his lips to hers.

As was usual in any other circumstance, Puck's hands immediately went to rest at her waist. It was a little weird, what with the baby bump in between them, and him not actually on the couch with her, but they'd gotten used to having to work around that. Santana moved on hand around to the back of Puck's neck, deepening the kiss, as her other hand slowly worked at getting the buttons on his shirt undone. No traditional honeymoon didn't mean they couldn't make out and she couldn't touch right? She'd gotten the first few buttons undone when Puck apparently grew impatient too and broke the kiss to quickly undo the last few and drop his shirt to the floor. Santana sighed heavily and ran her hands down the bare skin of his chest, letting her fingers gently trace over the muscle there. Puck's warm breath entered her mouth as he parted her lips with his own. Her fingers squeezed slightly onto the back of his neck as she felt his fingers inch up the fabric of her maternity top. It wasn't until his fingertips touched the bare skin of her stomach that something occurred to her.

The baby wasn't moving.

She pressed a hand against Puck's chest, indicating that she wanted him to stop –at least for now- and he got the message, though the look of confusion on his face said that he definitely didn't understand why she had a sudden change of mind. Her baby hormones usually had her crazy for him at this point, she knew that, but something wasn't right. The baby wasn't moving at all. There was hardly a time when Faith wasn't rolling around or kicking anymore. Puck always said it was her way of saying 'let me out of here already.' Especially in moments where the two of them started to get more on the heated side, it was like Faith knew what was going on and was saying 'don't forget I'm already here, you don't need to work on making another one.' But now, no there was nothing. Santana frowned, her brow furrowing, as she placed her hands on either side of her stomach and looked down at it.

"What's wrong? Did I do something?" Puck asked, "Oh god, is it the baby? Is she coming now?"

Santana shook her head, but didn't look up at him. She kept her thoughtful look focused on her belly. She'd always been more on the paranoid and overactive side when it came to things involving her pregnancy. The first sonogram they'd gotten, she sat and stared at in the OBGYN's office, then proceeded to ask the doctor all sorts of questions about why the baby looked so small, if something was wrong. Turned out, all babies looked like a tiny peanut at that stage. So she worried a lot, that was normal wasn't it? This was probably nothing. There'd been a lot of jitters and excitement earlier on in the day and evening what with the wedding happening, so Faith was probably just tired and not her usual bouncing self. Yeah, that had to be it. Santana nodded to herself and let out a quiet laugh that sounded like a mix of relief and hysteria.

"Everything's fine, I think. She's just… really calm. It's weird. I'm not used to her being calm, you know?" she explained.

Puck smiled and leaned forward to kiss her forehead, then leaned down to kiss the bump in her belly. "Maybe we'll get lucky and she won't be a totally hyper child after all." He joked.

"I wouldn't hold your breath, she _is _a Puckerman after all." Santana laughed.

Puck chuckled quietly and leaned forward to press his lips gently to hers. They both ate a couple more of the jello squares before Puck went and put them back in the fridge. He helped her up off the couch as she went to stand, and he wound his arms around her waist, leaning his forehead against hers.

"Well, _Mrs. Puckerman_, I'd say that we could go to our bed and get all physical since that's what people do on their honeymoon, but you've already kind of got one in the oven, and I think it's a little late to make a twin." He smirked.

She laughed and shook her head, "You know it doesn't work that way anyway."

"Least I don't think storks bring them." He joked, putting one hand on her stomach.

Santana groaned and rolled her eyes, "Don't _ever _let our daughter actually believe that storks bring babies. I swear, if she's anything like Britt-"

"Hey, hey now. Put the claws away Mrs. Puckerman." He laughed, rubbing her bump gently.

She sighed, a small smile tugging up the corners of her mouth, and nodded once slowly. She could definitely get used to hearing him call her that. _Mrs. Puckerman. _Mrs. Santana Puckerman. It had a little ring to it, and she loved it. This would be the way it was from now on, just him, her, and little Faith. Puck's hand was still gently running over the bump in her stomach and she looked down at it, her smile fading just slightly. Faith still wasn't moving at all, usually she did when Puck rubbed her belly like that. It was when he could feel her kick, and he'd start talking to her. Puck must have noticed the lack of movement, as well as the fact that Santana's brow had furrowed again in worry, because he lifted her chin gently with his free hand, getting her to meet his eyes. It was rare that Puck ever had a legitimately serious look on his face. Sure, he'd looked almost serious plenty of times, but not nearly as serious as he did now. He had to know something was up too.

"Do you want to go to the hospital, see if Dr. Lee can tell you what's up? I can tell that you're worried. It's probably nothing, she's probably just worn out tonight, but if you want to go down there, I'll drive you." He said calmly, his thumb brushing over her cheek.

Santana thought about it for a minute, chewing on the inside of her lip. There was still the possibility that it was nothing, that Puck was right and Faith was just worn out from the day and that she was really worried about nothing. But it was the tiny possibility that something could potentially be wrong that had her hesitating in just telling him no and to take her to bed. What were the odds that anything was actually wrong anyway? After another quiet moment of hesitation, she shook her head and put on a small smile as she looked up at him again.

"No, I think it's okay for tonight. If she's still not moving tomorrow morning, then we'll go, but you're probably right. She's just tired right now." She said.

Puck raised his eyebrows, "You're sure?"

"Positive." She nodded.

He smiled and leaned in to press his lips to hers a couple times before turning, keeping his arm around her waist, and walking to the bedroom with her. As Puck slipped out of his pants and she changed into the maternity nightgown she'd grown used to wearing for the past few months now, she didn't feel her nervousness ease. Laying down didn't help. She felt physically uncomfortable, and she never felt that way with Puck. Her head always rested right there on his chest, right where she could always fall asleep with his arm around her, but tonight, not even that was calming enough. Puck was asleep within twenty minutes of them lying down. Santana tried laying flat on her back, her arms folded over her chest, but sleep still wasn't coming. She turned onto her side, her back to him, and still nothing. When she turned back over to face him again, her turned sleepily, his eyes barely opening to look at her.

"Santana, let's just go to the hospital babe." He mumbled tiredly.

"No, no it's okay. You're sleeping, I just can't get comfortable." She whispered.

She'd never been particularly fond of hospitals anyway, even if the circumstances did make it seem like a good idea to head to one. Puck groggily sat up, leaning back against the wall at the head of the bed. His eyelids were droopy as he looked at her, but she still avoided his eye contact. She should have know that he'd know she wasn't just okay while she was pretending. He knew her like the back of his hand. She sighed, feeling her eyes sting with a familiar feelings of tears.

"I don't like this Puck. I don't like feeling like something's wrong. She never just doesn't move, even on days where a lot's gone on, you and I both know that." She muttered.

Puck rubbed up and down her back soothingly, "Maybe she's just getting ready to make her way out or something. Babies don't move a whole lot right before they're born right?"

She shrugged. She didn't know this kind of thing, she'd never been pregnant before. She had half the mind to call Quinn and ask her, even though they'd shut that door on the fact that she'd had Puck's baby sophomore year a long time ago, but she stopped herself, realizing it'd be stupid to call her best friend at one in the morning just to ask her if when she'd been pregnant if the baby had ever just stopped moving. Puck, apparently accepting her silence as some kind of answer, stood up out of bed and started pulling his pants back on. She looked up at him, biting down on her lip. He smiled at her, that kind of smile that she knew only he could give, and he only ever gave it to her. The smile that he'd given her every time he'd told her he wasn't going anywhere and he'd always take care of her. Once he was dressed again, he looked at her, a glimpse of that same smile still on his face as he held his hand out to her to help her up.

"It's gonna be okay Santana, I promise."

The way he said it almost made her able to believe it.


	3. Chapter 3: Faith

A/N: So this chapter is really, really sad guys. I'm sorry! I hope you guys still like it though. And for the record, this isn't the end of the story just yet. Gotta have at least a half-way happy ending. It's also really long, turned out a lot longer than I thought it would, but hopefully that's all good with you guys. :)  
>-<p>

Chapter 3-

The hospital was surprisingly crowded considering how late at night it was. Santana hadn't had to go to urgent care in a long enough time that she'd almost forgotten what it looked like. She'd never been entirely fond of hospitals, so she squeezed tightly onto Puck's hand as they sat in the waiting room. His thumb gently rubbed against the back of her hand and every once in a while he'd lift it to his lips to kiss the back of it, muttering quiet words that were supposed to comfort her. The fact that Faith hadn't moved at all even in the past twenty five minutes of them sitting in the hospital wasn't making her feel any better.

"Santana Lopez?" One of the nurses called as she came into the waiting room.

Santana bit down on her lower lip and looked at Puck. He did his best at giving her that reassuring smile he'd usually give her, but it was flawed. He was worried too, no matter how much he was trying to hide it and act like everything was perfectly fine. Puck took both of her hands in his and helped her up to her feet, his arm immediately wrapping around her as they walked through the door to go back into the operating and examination area. The nurse led them to one of the available rooms and Santana sat down on the edge of the bed, looking nervously at the elderly woman.

"So what's going on tonight Miss Lopez? Everything alright with the baby, she move at all?" she asked.

"No…she hasn't moved at all in like… two hours." Santana said quietly.

Puck sat down on one of the rolling stools and rolled over to her bedside, taking hold of her hand again and looking up at the nurse.

"Babies do that though, right? When they're getting ready to come out they just calm down and don't move so much?" he asked.

The nurse nodded slowly, writing something down on her clipboard, "That does happen sometimes. When's your due date?"

"Three weeks from now." Santana answered, her eyes now locked on the floor.

"But it's normal for a baby to come early sometimes, right? Like just a few weeks like this?" Puck asked again.

Santana recognized the nervousness in his voice. He'd seemed so calm and collected at home, just trying to reassure her and make sure she wasn't worrying too much. Now he sounded just as scared as she felt, and that definitely wasn't helping her to feel any better. She squeezed onto his hand, but didn't look at him. Instead her eyes moved to her stomach, her teeth clamped down on her lip. She was practically willing the baby inside of her to move, even just a little bit. The nurse scribbled down something else on her clipboard, not answering Puck's question.

"The doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes, just relax, we'll see what's going on."

The smile on the woman's face was probably meant to be reassuring, but all Santana felt like doing was slapping it off her face and yelling at her to just take care of her baby and make sure everything was okay. When the door to the room closed, panic mode came on. She'd done her best to prevent the quick, short breaths that came with her panic attacks, she'd even managed to not feeling like crying, but now that was all gone.

"Santana, San! Calm down, babe, it's okay, it's okay." Puck said quickly, first taking her face carefully in his hands, then wrapping his arms around her.

He rubbed up and down her back as her hands squeezed and unsqueezed onto the front of his shirt, trying to get a grip of herself. After a couple minutes of taking deep breaths and managing to keep herself from crying, she laid back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. She'd dropped her phone on the bedside table and rested her hands on her stomach as she laid in silence.

"It's gonna be okay, San. I promise, everything's fine." Puck said.

He tried to let some form of calm work its way into his voice, but she knew him better than that. She could see through it. When her phone vibrated on the wooden table, Puck reached for it at the same time she did. He looked at her, giving her a serious look that said he would get it, so she stopped and let her hands fall to her belly again.

"Hey Britt, San can't talk right now." Puck said as he answered the phone.

Based on the way that Puck rolled his eyes and began shaking his head, Santana assumed that the blonde had said something stupid –as per usual.

"No, we're at the hospital, B. She'll call you later." He said, his voice carrying an underlying tone of irritation.

He hit the end call button on the phone and set it back down on the nightstand. He opened his mouth to speak up, but the door to the room opened. The doctor wore a bright, optimistic smile on her face –something that never seemed to falter no matter what the reason for being there was- and she glanced over the papers on her clipboard before she looked at Santana.

"Okay, let's see what's going on."

Quinn stirred in her sleep as she heard her phone buzz on the coffee table in front of the couch. Sam stirred beside her where he slept. He wouldn't have even been there had her mom been home for the night, but she'd gone out and was apparently staying out with her new 'boyfriend' for the night. Quinn hadn't fully accepted the fact that her mom was actually dating someone, but that was beside the point. The intention hadn't been for Sam to actually stay the night, but they'd fallen asleep together in the middle of the movie they'd been watching. She sat up and reached for her phone off the table, rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes with her other hand. She heard Sam's phone vibrate in his pocket just before he groggily sat up and reached for it too. Quinn squinted at the bright light of her phone screen and gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the light enough to read the message on the screen. It was from Brittany. Despite the inaccuracy of the message _'Puck and Santana are at the baby store, the stork must have dropped by their house,' _a smile formed on her face as she turned to look at Sam. He also had a small smile on his face –he must have gotten the same message.

"Santana's having the baby!"

Puck looked down at Santana where she laid, her back facing him. She sniffled, muffled whimpering noises coming from her mouth behind her hand where she was trying to cover up the sound. Her other arm was wrapped around her midsection, clutching onto her stomach. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. How did he make this better? _Was _there any making this better? Santana's faltering composure snapped again and she began crying as she had been off and on for the past hour now. He felt his arms tighten over his chest where he had them crossed and his own eyes stung with tears. That never happened. Noah Puckerman didn't cry. He was a stud, a badass, he intimidated people just by leering at them the right way, he wasn't this guy. He wasn't the vulnerable, emotional guy that he'd suddenly become as of an hour ago.

He reached and rested his hand gently on her shoulder, but she recoiled from his touch. He ground his teeth together, watching as she brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. She never shied away from his touch. Even when they fought and were yelling at each other, it was never like this. He opened his mouth to try and say something to help her, but no words were coming to him. He was two seconds from completely breaking down, and he knew it was inevitable that it would happen, but he also knew that he didn't want her to see it happen, she didn't need that right now. He leaned over her to kiss her temple gently, trying to ignore the way she only cried harder, and walked out of her room into the hallway. At first, he'd thought it was empty, but as he looked down the corridor, he saw a few familiar faces headed his way.

Puck shook his head slowly as Finn, Brittany, Rachel, and Artie came toward him down the hallway. There was a pink and white teddy bear sitting in Artie's lap, Rachel was carrying a paper gift bag with a stork carrying a swaddled baby girl on it overflowing with pastel pink tissue paper. Puck's bottom lip trembled and he bit down on it. He wasn't doing this in front of them either, especially not them.

"Puck! Man, congrat-"

"You shouldn't be here." He muttered quietly, cutting Finn off and stepping away from the arm the taller boy moved to put around him.

"After I talked to you, I told everybody that the stork brought your baby. I don't like babies, but I guess they're exciting or something." Brittany said.

Puck dug his nails into the palms of his hands where he clenched them into fists. He knew Santana didn't like Brittany much as of late, but he'd never been the one to make it known how much her naivety irritated him sometimes. Right now it was taking his best effort not to completely snap on her.

"Finn and Rachel picked out an outfit for her, Britt and I got the teddy bear." Artie explained, smiling and holding up the bear that sat in his lap.

Couldn't they see it on his face? Wasn't it clear just how hard he was working to keep a handle on himself right now? He wasn't okay, he wasn't happy, and here were his friends trying to congratulate him and make this all a happy occasion.

"Actually I picked out the outfit, Finn isn't all that great at picking out girl clothes. I picked out an adorable pink jumper, it's got a rabbit on the front of it and these little shorts that go-"

"Rachel, will you just shut up? I don't want the stupid outfit. I don't want any of your stupid baby stuff." Puck snapped, his voice shaking.

They all stared at him in shock for a moment, their jaws hanging open, faces contorted in both surprise and confusion –minus Brittany anyway. Finn looked like he could have been just slightly mad and about to go off on another of his 'Don't talk to my girlfriend that way' speeches. Puck shook his head again and turned away from them so that his back was turned to them, running a hand over his mohawk. He felt a small hand rest on his shoulder and nearly turned to snap at Rachel again, but instead stood in his tensed stance without turning to look at her.

"Noah… what's wrong?" she asked quietly.

His lip trembled again, his eyes stinging even more than they had before, actually pooling with moisture now. _You're not crying in front of them Puckerman, you're not freaking crying in front of them. _he thought to himself. He sucked in a deep breath and squeezed his hands into tighter fists at his sides.

"Can you just leave? All of you. Just get out." He mumbled under his breath.

Rachel's hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment, then slowly slipped from it. He could feel them still standing behind him for a moment and continued keeping his back to them. After another couple moments, he heard the quiet shuffling of their retreat, then their muttering to each other. They really didn't know what was wrong, or if they did they sure were good at acting like they didn't. He turned slowly, just in time to see Artie rolling around the corner at the end of the hall, giving him a sad, apologetic look. Puck's eyes moved down to the pastel colored teddy bear that they'd left sitting on the floor right next to the door to Santana's room.

That was when he lost it. The barricade on the feelings he'd been trying so hard to hide and keep maintained fell down and he cried. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually cried, sometime when he was a kid probably. Now, it felt like something foreign –the tears in his eyes, running down his face. He wiped them away quickly, trying to pull back on the mask of stubborn strength. That route swiftly transfigured his sadness to anger, and he picked up the stuffed toy off the tiled floor and threw it at the wall across the hallway. The bear rattled the framed painting that hung there and fell to the floor. Puck did his best not to do the same.

She knew they were late, neither one of them was really quick to their feet after having been asleep. Quinn got out of the car as Sam parked it at the hospital, making sure to grab the balloons they'd grabbed at the twenty-four hour convenience store on their way there. Sam asked the receptionist lady in the waiting room where Santana's room was, and though the look on the woman's face seemed somewhat suspicious, they followed her directions with smiles on their faces. She laced her fingers with Sam's after he'd taken the balloons from her in his other hand. They rounded the corner into the hall that the receptionist had told them Santana's room was located in, and Quinn had to do a double-take. Puck was standing out in the hallway alone, he wasn't in the room with Santana and their daughter. There was a light pink teddy bear on the floor opposite where he stood. She exchanged a worried look with Sam before letting go of his hand to rush forward toward their friend.

"Puck… Puck, what's- the baby.. she's.. she's alright, right?"

Quinn knew Puck. Puck didn't cry. Not when he was dumped, not when he went to juvie, not ever. He didn't cry, and yet, here he was standing, his teeth clamped down onto his lip, his eyes red, swollen, and damp. He was holding himself together, and just barely. His hands were in tight fists, his arms folded over his chest. For a second he looked right passed the two blondes in front of him, down the empty hallway. Then he looked back at them, first at Sam, then at Quinn, read the concern in both of their eyes, and he snapped.

"They don't know how it happened." He blurted out quickly, tears already falling once again as he shook his head slowly, "She was fine. Everything was perfectly fine just yesterday, and now-"

Quinn's jaw hung open, tears coming to her own eyes. She looked at Sam for just a second, seeing the same expression she'd seen on his face the day he'd told her his family had lost everything. He was broken, but even more broken than Sam was Puck.

"What did we do, Quinn? God, why did this happen to us? My little girl she's-"

And that was it. Any even slight composure he'd worked so hard at holding up was gone. Noah Puckerman had officially broken down. Quinn wrapped her arms around him as he moved toward her. She'd lost hold on the tear dam she was trying to keep up and now they both were crying. When Brittany had sent out that mass text saying Santana was in the hospital, they'd all assumed that she'd had the baby. Sam was still clutching the pink 'Congratulations' balloons tightly in his now trembling hand. How could this have happened? To Santana and Puck of all people?

"Shhh, it's okay, it's okay." Quinn whispered through crying, trying just to bring some kind of comfort, but she knew the fact of the matter was it wasn't okay. It was as far from okay as things could possibly get.

Puck shook his head against her shoulder, she could feel the wet material of her shirt move with it. What was she supposed to do? She looked desperately over at Sam who even though he looked like he was two seconds away from crying just as much as she and Puck were, stepped up and put his hand on Puck's shoulder. Puck slowly let go of Quinn, wiping his eyes in a vulnerable way that neither Sam or Quinn thought they could ever see from him.

"Y-You have to talk to h-her Quinn." Puck stuttered.

Quinn started to shake her head, "Puck I don't think I-"

"_Please_. She doesn't have anyone, Quinn… She doesn't have.. her mom, to be there and hold her hand and tell her this isn't.. it's not her fault."

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the things that no one sees coming always hurt the most? Quinn stared at Puck, heard the words he was saying, what he was asking of her, and all she could do was nod once, because he was right. While she didn't feel like she had the right words to say, Santana had just lost her child. A child that she'd done everything she could to take care of throughout her pregnancy. A child that should have been able to look up at her mommy and daddy and smile, and grow up with these parents who hadn't at first been prepared, but they'd made themselves ready –excited even- for her to become a part of their lives. Santana needed someone right now, and while Quinn wasn't the woman who would have the most influence on the girl in pieces in her hospital bed, she knew she had to try to do something to help. If only just to hold her when she cried.

"Okay." She said softly.

Sam reached for her hand, giving it a tight squeeze before he wrapped an arm around Puck –the way they did in football when they were trying to drag an injured player off the field- and towed him over where he could slump down to the floor against the wall. Quinn glanced back at them, sitting, crying, before trying to gather some kind of strength and turning the handle on Santana's door.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting. Maybe some doctors overlooking her best friend at least? But there wasn't anyone else in the room except for the tan skinned girl curled up on her side in her bed. Quinn stood frozen just inside the door for a minute, unsure what to say or do. She didn't know how to handle this sort of situation. Sure, she and Santana had been there for each other through a number of hard situations, but this? There had never been anything like this. The blonde slowly made her way over to Santana's bedside, standing behind where the latina had her back turned. Quinn's tears had stopped falling for the moment, though she could still feel the stinging in her eyes threatening to have them spilling over again at any second. Santana sniffled and slowly turned over so that she was laying on her back and looking up at Quinn. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and puffy, her cheeks pink and tearstained. Quinn took a quick, short breath and reached for her best friends hand. Santana didn't hold back on, but she didn't pull away from her either. She wasn't crying, and for a moment that surprised Quinn, but then she began talking.

"I didn't do anything wrong…" she said softly, her voice raspy, tired. "That's what they told me.. I didn't do anything wrong, Quinn." She sobbed, shaking her head and giving up on whatever hold she'd had on her tears.

Quinn shook her head too, squeezing onto her best friend's hand as she felt the warmth of her own tears rolling down her cheeks again, "No Santana, no, of course you didn't."

Santana's face was contorted in so much pain, so much sorrow, and the tears just kept coming. Quinn didn't know what she was supposed to do. After a moment's thought, she slipped onto the bed next to Santana, wrapping both arms around her in a tight hug. Santana clutched tightly onto the blonde's arm and leaned her head back against her shoulder as she continued crying. Quinn hugged her tightly, hoping it brought even the tiniest bit of comfort, but knowing that it probably did absolutely nothing to help.

"I'm sorry Santana. I'm so, so sorry."

Sam sat silently next to Puck on the cool, tiled floor of the hallway outside Santana's room. Puck had finally stopped crying –something Sam was grateful for, no matter how much the situation definitely rendered the tears. He wasn't good with trying to make people feel better. He was awkward, his way of trying to solve a problem was with humor –impressions, nerdy comic book references. Those kinds of things just wouldn't work here. He pursed his lips thoughtfully as he stared across the empty walkway at the teddy bear that was lying on its side facing them. He wondered who'd brought it for them. Brittany must have sent that text to everyone, so it could have been anyone. Finn probably came by, maybe Mike or someone too. He was trying to occupy his thoughts with anything but the reality. He wasn't on such a childish level as Brittany was, but Sam wasn't equipped to handle this sort of thing. He admired the way that Quinn actually went into Santana's room to be there for her, despite the fact that he could tell it was the last thing she wanted to be putting herself through.

He glanced sideways at Puck who happened to be staring down at the tile. His eyes didn't move at all even when he was being looked at. Sam couldn't imagine what he felt. If it'd been himself and Quinn where Puck and Santana were now… He didn't even want to think about it. They were only seventeen and eighteen, they weren't even out of high school yet. They were still just a couple of kids and yeah, they loved each other and were perfect together, and yeah, they'd gone and made a lifelong commitment to each other and been ready to bring a child into the world, but that didn't change the fact that in reality, they were kids. They weren't ready for all this. These kinds of things weren't supposed to happen to a couple of kids.

"They let us see her, you know." Puck said quietly, breaking the awkward silence that had grown between the two of them.

Sam wasn't sure why he'd bring it up, but he knew as Puck's friend he had to be there and listen, give his two cents when necessary.

"Really? Did you… did you get to like.. hold her?" he asked haltingly.

Puck nodded slowly, his jaw tightening to try and hide the trembling it'd started to do again, "Yeah.. they let both of us hold her…" he paused and took the time to swallow thickly before speaking again. "She was so beautiful, Sam. This.. this tiny little bundle of perfection… My daughter." His voice cracked and he gave up on trying to talk once again.

Sam stared at him for a moment, biting on the inside of his cheek so he didn't just blurt something out without taking the time to actually think about what he was saying. It was hard, coming up with something that would have any kind of positive effect.

"It'll be okay, Puck." He shook his head slightly at the stupidity of the statement that had just left his mouth, "I mean… I know it's not right now, and it might not be for a really long time, but you and Santana are strong, you love each other. You'll get through this."

Puck sucked his quivering bottom lip into his mouth as he shook his head in denial, "I don't think so. I really don't know if we can be okay after this, Sam. I don't know if it's possible."

"I'm really, really sorry, but if you just have a little faith, someday things will be alright again." Sam replied.

Puck's body shook for a moment with a sob that he was trying to hold back, some of it escaping as he let out a few more tears and dropped his head into his hands. Sam swallowed hard around the lump that had formed in the back of his throat. Puck's quiet sounds of crying echoed a little bit through the empty hallway, and Sam felt like being surrounded by the sound would only ensure his own crying too. Puck removed his head from his hands, wiping the tears he'd shed away.

"See, there's a problem with that, Sam." He started, his voice uneven, "I can't have a little faith… Because I just lost her."


	4. Chapter 4: Broken

A/N: This is another relatively long, and pretty damn depressing one guys. Sorry! Puck does a lot of lashing out in this chapter. I think I just like writing angry Puck. Come to think of it, there's a lot of both Puck and Santana lashing out in this chapter. It's just a lash out-fest. Hopefully you guys like reading it :)

Chapter 4-

There was the sound of crying surrounding her. The baby that the wails and sobbing were coming from was nowhere in sight. Santana looked around frantically, the sound of her quickened heartbeat filling her ears as much as the sound of the infant's crying was. She was in a house she didn't recognize, with too many rooms, too many doors. The baby could have been anywhere. She ran down the hallway, throwing door after door open in a rush, trying to find the baby that was crying for her. She panted, both from the running and the fact that she was trying to hold herself together. _I need to find my baby, where is my baby?_

"You lost her Santana."

She froze in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat. She quickly looked over her shoulder, hoping to see Puck standing there, but he wasn't. It was just his voice, and it cut her like a knife. It was angry, unsympathetic, nothing like Puck would ever sound toward her for anything. A cold, painful feeling erupted in her chest and she had to resist the urge to drop to her knees right then and there and just start crying. The baby was still crying and she knew that she had to find her, to take care of her so that she was okay again. Slowly, she worked up the movement in her legs enough again to walk down the empty hallway, opening more doors that led to empty rooms. Her eyes were clouding over with tears once again until she finally flung open a door to a room with a crib in the center of it.

The crying grew louder the second the door was open, so she lunged forward toward the crib, ready to pick the child up and comfort her, but when she leaned over the side of the crib and peered down into it, there was no baby lying there. It was completely empty, and yet the crying continued, painfully loud in her ears now, as if the baby really was right there in front of her. Santana shook her head, muttering quiet words of denial through her tears, her fingers squeezing onto the wooden railing of the crib. Just as she was beginning to think that this nightmare wasn't going to get any worse, she heard Puck's harsh voice again.

"There is no baby. Get over it."

Santana jolted awake, sitting up and immediately bringing her hand to cover her mouth so she wouldn't scream. She'd screamed when waking up from those nightmares before, but it'd gotten to the point where Puck really had no idea how to help her with that anymore, screaming just made things awkward. It'd been a month. A whole month since the night her life had come crumbling to pieces, and nothing was better. The bad dreams didn't go away, she'd gone to school for a grand total of a week in all that time, she and Puck weren't living the normal way that they used to. He'd actually slept out on the couch for the last four nights, something she'd never seen happening. She hardly slept, but apparently when she did now she moved around a lot and made sounds like she was crying in her sleep, and since he was the one trying to be mister tough guy and going to school still, he needed to be able to sleep.

She hated everything about what her life was now. She was Santana Lopez. She'd been a Cheerio, head bitch for a long time. Sure, a lot had changed –she'd joined glee club, she'd gotten pregnant and then married- but she was never this girl, the broken, washed up teenager who no one wanted to be around because they didn't know what they were supposed to say to her. It wasn't really that she wanted to see anyone anyway. For once in her life, Santana was actually perfectly content with being alone.

She could hear Puck in the kitchen, rinsing off whatever dishes he'd probably used to make breakfast for the morning. She ran her fingers as much as she could through her knotted hair before tiredly standing up out of bed. It took so much effort to get out of bed these days. Half the time she didn't want to move at all, but she knew that if she didn't at least make the tiniest bit of effort, it wouldn't do any good. Not that she really felt like anything did her any good anymore anyway. She slugged her way out of the bedroom, not bothering to pull any shorts of pants on with the oversized t-shirt she slept in. Puck turned around from where he stood at the stove when he heard her come out.

"I made waffles, they're still warm." He nodded toward the plate with the syrup covered waffles on it on the table.

She shook her head a little bit, "Not hungry."

"Of course not." He mumbled under his breath.

He moved passed her and reached for the plate off the table, dumping the uneaten food in the trash can. It'd become a daily routine. She ate maybe half a meal a day, if that. She knew it wasn't healthy –though compared to her past eating habits, or lack thereof, to stay in shape for Cheerios, she was doing slightly better- but she didn't care. She didn't feel like eating. In fact, most times even just the thought of food made her stomach turn. Puck didn't take lightly to the fact that she hardly ate. He didn't take lightly to anything lately though. She knew there were different ways of coping with sadness –hers was the dark depression- but she couldn't say that Puck channeling his sorrow and mourning into anger was a good thing. It was only a matter of time before he snapped on someone, Santana of all people knew that could happen. After disposing of the food and rinsing off the plate, Puck turned around and eyed her up and down slowly. She folded her arms across her chest, knowing what was coming next.

"Are you going to school today?" he asked.

"No." she answered without hesitation.

Honestly, she was surprised he even bothered asking her anymore. Her answer was the same every day. What good was school going to do her? She was only going to get stared at and constantly talked to. She didn't want to be around people, and she certainly didn't want people coddling her and constantly apologizing or asking her how she was holding up. Obviously she wasn't holding up well, didn't they take into consideration what had happened at all? As it was, on the daily she ignored countless texts and phone calls from the people in the glee club. She just didn't want to hear it, and going to school there'd be absolutely no avoiding that. Puck rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

"Fine."

He slunk passed her, bumping her shoulder gently with his, as he went back into the bedroom to grab his backpack for school. Santana didn't know how he could do it. He didn't seem to have a problem at all. Every day he came and went from school like nothing even effected him. She didn't have that kind of strength, no matter how long she'd worked at trying to be the confident and slightly intimidating girl she'd been before.

"Stay home with me today." She said softly after following him back into the room.

"No." he replied, "I have a Spanish test, and glee club's rehearsing for Regionals still. They're in like a week or something."

"Who cares.." she mumbled, looking down at the floor.

Once upon a time, she'd cared. They were supposed to be doing original songs for this one. She remembered how excited she and everyone else had been when Mr. Schuester had made that announcement. She and Puck had even talked to each other about writing songs for each other, or at the very least one together. It didn't even seem like it mattered in the slightest now.

"I care. It's kind of important to me. Used to be to you too, you know, when you actually _went _to school." His voice took on a slightly irritated tone.

Santana's eyes narrowed and she clenched her teeth together, "Whatever."

She folded her arms across her chest again and sat down on her side of the bed. She didn't see the point in arguing it with him, the few times she had actually done that it didn't make a difference anyway. Either way he wasn't happy with the fact that she wouldn't leave the house. She thought that he of all people would understand why she was dealing the way that she was, but apparently she'd been wrong.

"What do you want me to do Santana? You want me to stay at home like you do every day and sit and stare at that crib, pretending like she's there?" Puck shook his head, "This isn't you, and you know perfectly well it's not me either. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Santana glared through her tears up at him, forever the stubborn fighter, "We lost a _child _Puck, it's not like we bought a puppy that got run over or something! She was our _daughter_. You can't just go on and pretend like that never happened."

Puck laughed dryly, the sound full of sarcasm and anything but the usual amusement that came with laughter. He threw his hands up in exasperation, but didn't say anything. Instead he turned to the pile of gift bags full of baby clothes and toys that people had gotten for them over the course of her pregnancy. He reached into one of the paper bags and pulled out a light purple gingham jumper and looked at it before he turned to the crib.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"What you want me to do. You're pretending she's still here, so obviously that's what you want me to do too." He didn't turn to look at her as he spoke, instead he did something that she couldn't see in the crib. "Come on Faith, let's get ready for the day. Daddy will take you over to grandma's today and Mommy will pick you up after school since Daddy's gotta go to football practice."

Santana's jaw hung open, tears pooling in her eyes.

"After you're all dressed, we'll get you some breakfast. You want some pears? I think we've got pears you can eat this morning."

"Stop it." She said softly.

Puck ignored her, continuing in his fake activities with the nonexistent child, "I bet you you'll have a fun day with Grandma and Auntie Sarah. Daddy and Mommy will miss you while we're at school, but you-"

"Stop it!" Santana raised her voice, getting up and slamming her fist against his shoulder, full-fledged crying now.

Puck dropped the tiny outfit he'd been holding in his hands into the crib and turned to look at her seriously.

"No, you stop it. Do you see anything getting better by you staying here all the time? Are things getting any easier by you just laying here and crying all the time? Is anything changing besides the fact that you're making yourself sick, and falling far behind in school?" he countered.

She bit down on her trembling lip, not saying anything in response.

"I know this isn't easy, I know that it's really hard Santana, I know that, but-"

"But nothing Puck! You're acting like nothing even happened! You're just going to school and being a part of glee and football and everything like things are perfectly fine. It's like you don't even care." She snapped at him, cutting him off.

His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed, "You really think I don't care? You think I'm _happy _every day? You don't know how I feel, and yeah, that's my fault, because I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to dwell on it, because I don't want to be where you are. I don't want to give up on everything and watch what I have left slip passed me. I put on a strong face every day, and I ignore everyone's stupid apologies, because as hard as it is, life has to go on." His voice shook just slightly on the last statement. It was enough indication to Santana that he meant what he was saying, and he wasn't just going on like things were back to normal. "You forget that it wasn't just you that this happened to Santana. You aren't the only one who lost their child. Maybe if you paid attention to something other than yourself every now and again you'd know that."

Her mouth fell open in surprise at the harshness of his words, but he didn't seem to notice, or if he did he didn't care, because he walked right passed her out of the bedroom. The front door to the apartment slammed closed behind him as he left. She stood gaping at the empty air in front of her for a moment. She sucked in a quick breath and wiped the tears that had soaked her face with the back of her hand. Her jaw quivered as her eyes raked over the baby gifts their friends had given to them. She moved slowly over to the side of the crib that Puck had been standing over, looking down into it. The jumper he'd picked out was perfectly laid out on the light colored mattress. It only made her cry more, knowing that it was just laying there on its own, when there could have been a little girl laying there in it. She picked up the small clothes, her hands gradually clenching into fists around the fabric.

"Puck, hey." The quiet familiarity of the voice was almost annoying now.

Puck's teeth ground together, but he took a deep breath through his nose to turn away from his open locker and look at Quinn. The past month couldn't have gone by slower. He wished that things would move along, that something else would happen that everyone on this stupid campus could start worrying about. He didn't want people worrying about him. What he felt didn't matter, he didn't want people constantly checking in on him. He'd grown used to the 'how are you' and 'is everything alright' questions, but that didn't mean he didn't still think they were idiotic questions. Why would anyone who'd been through what he and Santana had been through be _alright_? Quinn was one of the few who actually checked in on him every single day. At first she'd asked about Santana, but she knew as well as Puck did how Santana was, so after a while she stopped asking about her and just checked on him.

"How are you?" Quinn asked.

Puck shrugged one shoulder, "Same old, same old."

He looked up from shoving his backpack in his locker again as Sam came up to stand beside Quinn. Sam looked at him sympathetically, but Puck had grown numb to the feeling of people's sympathy. Sympathy didn't fix anything, it only just made him feel pathetic and he didn't want that. That was why he reacted to everything so angrily. He was sad, beyond it. Sad didn't even come close to what he felt. He was broken, but he wasn't going to go admitting that to anyone. He sure as hell wasn't going to show it either. People already pitied him enough and he hated it. Granted he didn't necessarily want everyone to jump on the 'everything is totally okay' wagon, he just wasn't the kind of guy who'd ever liked people feeling sorry for him.

"I tried calling Santana again last night, no answer. Again." Quinn said.

"I tried texting her too and never got a response." Sam noted.

"I think she turned her phone off." Puck replied.

"Well, maybe I could go over and see her after school or something. You know, try and talk to her, get her out of-"

"I really think she just wants to be left alone." He cut her off, gripping onto the open door of his locker.

What was going on with Santana was killing him. He'd never been okay with the times she was upset, but this was a hundred times worse than that. This was worse than any one of the times she'd come to him after her dad had hit her. Those times had been terrible, but at least she came out of those. This depression she was in seemed never-ending. He understood, and he did his best to accept it, because if he wasn't so concerned with people thinking he was a weak ass, he probably would have spent all of his time doing nothing but sulking at home too. But he knew that he couldn't do that, even if he did want to. He didn't like snapping at her, he hated it and felt horrible about it, but sometimes he just built himself so far up there was no stopping it, not even with her. The anger he was letting everyone see in place of his sadness didn't seem to go away even with her around.

He didn't blame her. Not at all, very much the opposite. Sometimes he actually blamed himself. Even in his mind he didn't usually have a legitimate reason why it could even be his fault, but he blamed himself anyway. It wasn't fair that this happened to them. They'd been so happy, things had been going so perfectly for them. Then all of this happened. In thirty percent of the cases of stillborn children, the doctors couldn't tell what had caused it. They'd been part of that thirty percent. That almost made it harder, not knowing how it happened, because that left open a world of possibilities.

"Puck, if you need anyone to talk to-"

"I don't _want _to talk to you Quinn. I've told you that before. If I get desperate, I'll go talk to Ms. Pillsbury. I'm not talking to you about my problems." He snapped.

"Don't you think you're trying too hard to be a martyr here.." Quinn replied softly.

That snapped the last of Puck's patience. He slammed the metal door of his locker closed, causing both Sam and Quinn to flinch. He glared at the blonde girl in front of him as he raised his voice at her.

"You, _you _of all people in this school don't get to sit here and tell me that I'm overreacting. You had a baby. You _gave up _your baby. You had a choice, you didn't have to hold an unmoving, nonliving child in your arms and know it was yours. I didn't even want you, and yeah, getting you pregnant was the biggest mistake of my life, but that baby was mine just as much as Faith was and twice now I've lost a daughter. You don't get to tell me that I can talk to you or that everything's gonna be fine, because now, I _had _a choice, I _made _my choice in where my daughter was supposed to be, and that was with me, and I lost her anyway. You don't understand because you're one of those selfish girls who cares more about your own image than anything else. You're impulsively selfish. You want everything to go back to normal and be okay so you don't have to feel sorry for anyone anymore. I don't want your pity or your help Quinn, just leave me alone."

Quinn had started crying somewhere in the middle of his yelling, but he could only barely make himself care at the moment. His frustration was overpowering that. Sam looked at him with a tightened jaw and narrowed eyes.

"You can't talk to her like that." He snapped.

"Sam, just.. let's go." Quinn cried, trying to tug him away by the arm.

"No!" He yanked his arm away from her and moved closer to Puck, the anger clear in his eyes, "I get it dude, you're hurt, you're pissed, you've been through more than anyone should in high school. I'm sorry, it sucks, and I know it's really hard, but you don't get to talk to Quinn like that, you don't get to treat everyone else like crap just because you hate your life right now."

"You gonna stop me?" The smug tone of voice was one Puck hadn't heard himself use in a long time.

Sam raised his eyebrows challengingly, "If I have to? Yeah. You're being a total ass. You've rendered being upset, but you haven't rendered treating people like you are."

Puck's fists tightened at his sides. He was about two seconds away from swinging at the blonde in front of him, but them his eyes scoped out the hallway. People had stopped their talking or looking through their lockers to look at the confrontation that was going on. He was used to people staring at him, whether it was because they were intimidated by him and scared he was going to attack them, or because they knew he was the one who'd knocked up Quinn, or then Santana, or now because they knew what had happened to the baby he was supposed to have. People's eyes were constantly on him, but this time it was different because they weren't afraid or judgmental like they usually were. They were full of apology, full of a level of sadness that he'd never earned from any of them. He looked back at Sam who still looked just as defensive standing in front of him, his crying girlfriend standing behind him. He bit the inside of his cheek momentarily as he felt his eyes sting. He'd managed to keep himself from crying thus far, he wasn't doing this now.

"I'm sorry." He rasped, meeting Sam's eyes.

He looked past him at Quinn who barely glanced up at him with tear-filled eyes for just a second before letting them retreat to the floor again.

"Quinn, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things to you." He said.

She shook her head a little bit, still not looking at him, "It's okay."

Sam wound his arm around her waist, kissing the top of her head. Puck glanced away from them. It had never bothered him the way that Quinn and Sam were together –all happy and in love. However, it had never bothered him before because he'd had a girlfriend, a fiancé who he was the same way with. Now he was married to Santana, and he definitely didn't love her any less than he had before, but it hurt to see people be so happy when he was so far from it. He understood why Santana wouldn't want to come to school or be around anyone. Because it hurt, it really did. It wasn't as easy as he tried to lead on. Part of his argument in trying to get her to come to school with him everyday wasn't just so that she could get back on track and in a normal scheme of things, but so that he didn't have to face everyone on his own. He couldn't make her come with him though, he knew that. So he did his best to suck it up. Today clearly wasn't one of his better days.

"If you.." he hesitated a moment, thinking, before continuing, "If you want to try and go see her, you can. I know she doesn't answer her phone at all. She doesn't talk to me, but.. maybe she might talk to you, at least a little bit."

Quinn sniffled and nodded where her head rested against Sam's shoulder, "I'll go by after school while you guys are at football practice."

Sam's arm tightened around her comfortingly and Puck almost looked away from them again, but instead just nodded slowly and muttered a quiet "Thank you."

Quinn knocked hesitantly on the door to Puck and Santana's apartment. At this rate, she wouldn't have been surprised if the latina refused to open the front door, she refused any other form of contact. She halfway wished that Puck had come home too, but he and Sam were at football practice, and, despite the way he'd yelled at her in the hallway earlier, she had told him that she would come and talk to Santana. The door opened just barely and Santana poked her head around it.

"Oh, it's you." She mumbled.

Quinn did her best to put at least a hint of a smile on her face, "Hey! I just thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing. You don't answer my calls or anything so…"

"I'm fantastic. Chipper as ever, happy as a clam." Santana mumbled sarcastically, stepping out of the way to let Quinn into the house.

Immediately, even through the half-closed bedroom door, Quinn could see that it was a mess. She couldn't quite make out what it was that was all over the floor, but there certainly were things thrown around. The kitchen and living room looked untouched. Santana had probably been trying to hide her room based on the way the door was supposed to be closed. Quinn looked back over her shoulder as Santana shut the front door. Her dark hair was knotted and unbrushed, she wore only one of Puck's t-shirts that was too big for her, and her eyes were pink and swollen.

"Puck told you to come over here, didn't he?" she asked.

"I offered to come, he just said that maybe it was a good idea." The blonde answered.

"And in what universe would it be a good idea? I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to anyone. You'd think that my not going to school for the past month would show you people that. I just want you all to leave me alone." Santana snapped.

Quinn wasn't ready to get yelled at again. She knew that Santana had every right to be upset and angry –maybe even more right than Puck did- but she'd already gotten hurtful things yelled at her once today, she didn't know if she could handle getting it again. Especially from Santana. Sure, what Puck had said had hurt her feelings enough to make her cry, but Santana was her best friend, had been for a long time. It would affect her a lot worse. Santana stormed away from her, back into her bedroom. Quinn debated internally with herself for a moment whether or not she should just leave and tell Puck that she couldn't make a dent, or follow her best friend into the other room and try to talk to her. She ultimately decided to go with the second option.

"Tana, I know that this is hard for you but-"

"You weren't there Quinn!" Santana shouted, throwing down the paper bag that held a package of onesies that she'd picked up from the floor.

Quinn recognized them. They were the ones Finn had gotten for them, the ones marked with the days of the week and various animals next to the day names. They were adorable. Monday was a monkey, Tuesday was a tiger, Wednesday was a whale, and so on. She remembered Finn showing them to her and thinking _Oh gosh, Santana and Puck are going to love these. _Now here they were.

"You didn't see her face! Her-her beautiful little face-" Santana's voice cracked and she threw her hands up in frustration, "I held her Quinn. We both held her. Our _dead _child. You have _no idea _what that's like, so don't come in here and try to sympathize with me, because you don't know. You don't."

Santana was shaking her head, her hair falling into her face, sticking to her tearstained cheeks in some places. She threw down a plastic, baby phone, only to have it say in a childish voice 'I love you!' as soon as it hit the ground. Quinn stood across the room, trying to keep herself together. She knew this was hard for Santana, she wasn't trying to take that away, she hadn't mean that any of this was easy. Santana had misunderstood her intentions.

"Santana… I-"

"No, don't. Just get out. I've heard enough 'I'm sorry's and 'I just want to help you's. I'm _done _Quinn, finished. I don't need anyone's help, I need to handle things my own way and this is how I'm doing that okay?" She yelled. "So what if I-I stand over the crib and pretend like she's there looking up at me? So what if I picture exactly what outfit she'd be wearing or what toy she'd be playing with? It's how I handle things Quinn, and I don't want you or anyone else telling me I can't do that."

Quinn nodded slowly, looking down at the cluttered bedroom floor. There were baby clothes and toys thrown everywhere, very clearly thrown in some kind of rush. Like they were thrown out of anger, that much was obvious now. Santana must have done this same thing earlier on in the morning. There was a picture frame, the glass adorning a crack right down the middle. It was pink, the words 'Mommy and Daddy's Princess' were painted around the frame, and in it was the sonogram they'd kept from when they'd first found out that the baby was going to be a girl. The blonde's eyes stung with tears, not only because this situation in anyone's life would make her cry, but because this was her best friend. Her best friend who had been so excited to have a little girl with the love of her life's eyes. Her best friend who wouldn't ever be the same because of all of this.

"I can't even look at any of this crap without thinking about her. I just want it out! I want it all gone! Get rid of all of it, throw it all away." Santana threw the diaper bag hanging on the bag of the door down on the ground, and kicked the folded up stroller so it fell too.

Quinn shook her head, but Santana missed it on her way out of the room into the kitchen. She returned with a large, black garbage bag in her hand. She was still crying, as she had been the whole time, and her face was pink and swollen. Raw, from weeks of crying over this whole thing. She began stuffing toys and clothes alike into the bag, sobbing and shaking her head slowly as she went. It was only when she finally broke and fell to her knees, letting go of the bag to hold her face in her hands that Quinn moved from where she was and rushed to the brunette's side. Santana immediately leaned against Quinn as she hugged her, tan fingers curling around the fabric of the sweater Quinn wore.

"I can't do it, Quinn. I just can't. It-it hurts so much.. so, so much." She sobbed.

Quinn nodded, a few tears falling from her eyes as well, as she rubbed up and down the other girl's back slowly, "I know Tana, I know."

Puck glanced down at his cell phone as he pulled it out of his locker. Practice was over, he'd showered already, most of the other guys had already left the locker room, but he was taking his time. Not only was he trying to give Quinn enough time to talk to Santana for a while, but he was dreading going home after the dick move he'd made that morning. He hated knowing that Santana was upset, he hated even more knowing that now he was a part of that. He knew he couldn't just not go home, that'd only make things worse, but he wasn't sure how he was going to handle seeing her again when he did go home. He needed to apologize and he knew that. He clicked the button to open up the text message from Quinn when he grabbed his phone. _'I talked to her for a while, helped her clean up a little bit. She's okay as she can be for the moment, but she says she wants to talk to you. Go home after practice.' _Puck leaned his forehead against the cool metal of his locker. For a moment he thought that on his way home he should stop and pick up her favorite tacos, but she wasn't eating lately anyway. Then he thought he should pick up flowers, but he was one of those guys that didn't really see the point in buying flowers when they just ended up dying anyway. He dropped his phone back into his locker without texting Quinn back and finished drying off and getting dressed so that he could go home.

The apartment that they lived in wasn't that far from school, and despite the fact that he wasn't exactly in a hurry to be facing whatever was coming for him, Puck had never been one to drive slow. He'd been lucky to have no received a speeding ticket since getting his license. He sat outside the apartment in his truck for a minute, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. Any other girl he'd ever spent any amount of time with didn't have this effect on him. He didn't get nervous, but with Santana there was so much more to lose than there had been with anyone else, and that worried him. Slowly, he made his way to the front door, taking his time as he turned his key in the lock.

Santana was in the bedroom when he opened the front door, he could see her through the open bedroom door. She was toweling her wet hair. She must have just gotten out of the shower. Her eyes snapped up to look at him as she heard the front door close behind him. He met her eyes for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. They stood like that for a moment, just silently looking at each other, before he broke the eye contact to drop his backpack down by the couch. His brow furrowed as he walked into the bedroom to find the corner of the room where the crib and other baby things had been that morning. The rest of the room was clean, but the fact that all of that was missing confused him.

"I need to talk to you." Santana said softly.

He pushed the fact that the baby things were missing from his mind for a moment and looked at her –his _wife_. She opened her mouth to continue with what she was going to say, but he held his hand up to cut her off for a moment.

"Let me go first." He said, and when she nodded once he continued, "What I did this morning.. acting the way I did… There's no excuse for that. It was wrong, and I was being stupid and a jackass, and you don't deserve that. I'm really sorry."

She looked at him, not saying anything at first, then she moved closer to him, tilting her head back to look up at him before she leaned in and touched her lips to his gently. He carefully took her face between his hands and kissed her back. He didn't want to fight with her anymore, he didn't want to be the bad guy trying to convince her to do things that she didn't want to be doing. When she slowly pulled back from him, they held eye contact silently for a moment before she spoke up.

"Quinn and I put all of.. Faith's things away. They're just in the closet, we didn't actually like.. get rid of anything.." She started, her voice barely above a whisper, "It just… it hurt, seeing it all there, like everything was fine. It was like this constant reminder right in front of my face and.. Puck, I just couldn't handle it anymore."

He wiped her tears away with his thumbs and shook his head a little bit, trying to indicate the fact that it didn't matter, he wasn't mad about it. If anything he understood. Seeing the crib there in the corner of the room didn't help him any either. Sitting at home every day with it like she did couldn't have been better than just seeing it in the morning when waking up or at night when going to sleep. He kissed her forehead once and looked at her again.

"It's okay Santana. I get it." He said.

"I just- I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. I hate it when you're mad at me." She stammered.

Puck wrapped his arms around her, securing her against his chest where she continued to cry a bit more. He kissed the top of her head and vowed quietly that he promised he wasn't mad at her, and he was sorry, and that he wouldn't ever do something that stupid again. He wasn't going to be the one responsible for hurting her again. He kept his arms around her as he pulled her with him to sit down at the edge of the bed. He didn't miss the pastel pink teddy bear that had been given to them at the hospital on the floor on her side of the bed. Apparently she couldn't hide everything. When he really thought about it, he didn't think he could hide everything either. He needed _something_. Santana finally started to pull away from him, wiping her face with one hand and leaving the other rested against his chest.

"I'm sorry I'm in a bunch of pieces right now." She said quietly.

He shook his head, "Don't apologize. We're gonna get through this San, I promise."

"How?" she asked, clearly doing her best to hold back more crying.

Puck looked at her and tucked a piece of her dark hair behind her ear gently. He'd never seen the point in going to talk to a therapist about anything. What was the point of talking to someone you didn't even know about your problems? How could they possibly help you with anything? But maybe, at this point, with the way things kept escalating and then dissipating again, they both needed to talk to someone. They barely exchanged the details of how they felt about the entire situation with each other, maybe if there was someone else pushing them to talk about it, to talk to each other about it, it would be better.

"Maybe… maybe we should see someone." He offered.

Santana's brow furrowed in confusion, "You mean like a therapist or something? I don't really want to-"

"Hear me out." He cut her off calmly, "We'll go together. We'll do that like.. couples therapy thing people talk about sometimes. You know we're avoiding all of this, all of these.. feelings that we both have, maybe going to see someone will bring those things out."

She bit her lip. He knew the look that her face had taken on. She was hesitating, thinking about it. Thinking about it was better than declining it without trying. She dropped her hand from his chest finally, letting it fall into her lap where her other one rested. She twisted her hands nervously together.

"Do you really think it would help anything?" she asked.

"We won't know until we try it." He noted.

He wasn't sure quite yet exactly how he felt about the idea either, but he was trying whatever he could at this point. He didn't expect things to get back to being the perfect they'd both felt everything was before they'd lost Faith, they'd probably never quite get back to that. However, he didn't want the way things were with the two of them now to be how it was forever. He didn't want them to barely talk about things to each other. He didn't want her to live in this dark depression forever. He didn't want to constantly worry about keeping things too bottled up and then snapping on her like he had that morning. That wasn't how their lives together were supposed to go. Santana barely nodded her head in reluctant agreement. He reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze before using his other hand to tilt her face up to look at him again. He kissed her slowly, then left his forehead against hers.

"We'll fix this." He said softly.

Santana took in a shaky deep breath and let it out slowly, "I'm not sure you can fix something this broken."

He stayed quiet instead of telling her that he wasn't sure either.


	5. Chapter 5: Ultimatum

A/N: Sorry it was taken me so long to post this! This one's pretty uneventful in the actual, physical event sense. It's emotional and there's a lot of talking going on, by the end Santana's given an ultimatum –as the chapter title points out- that will start shaping her 'recovery.' I've only got a few chapters of this one left, they're all planned out and just need to be written completely, but there's only a few left. Thanks for all the reviews this has been getting, you're all amazing, and I hope you enjoy this one too :)

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><p>"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Santana asked quietly, twisting her hands together nervously in her lap.<p>

They were sitting in the waiting room at the psychiatrist's office. Santana hated it already. It just gave off such an uncomfortable vibe, she couldn't stand it. She didn't want to sit in front of some stranger and cry and rattle off her feelings. She wouldn't do it. Sure, Puck had asked her to come here and give it a try, but she still didn't think it was going to help anything. What would some old man with a few degrees do to help them with the pain they were feeling? It wouldn't change anything. She still would have lost the baby, they would still be broken because of that. One of Puck's hands moved to rest on top of both of hers in her lap. She glanced up at him through her lashes.

"No, I'm not sure, but we won't know until we try will we?" he retorted, giving her hands a squeeze that was probably meant to be comforting.

Her teeth clamped down onto her bottom lip and only dug in deeper as the woman they were here to talk to opened the door to let them know she was ready to see them now. Puck stood first and held his hand out to her. Her instinct was of course to take it, but there was another reaction she was feeling –to run away. Not from Puck, but from what they were about to be putting themselves through. Puck looked at her expectantly and the way his jaw trembled the tiniest bit and he swallowed had her reaching for his hand and squeezing it tightly as they walked back into the therapist's office. It was bland –a desk, a couch, a couple chairs. There were certificates lining the entirety of the wall behind the desk. That was probably supposed to reassure her somehow, let her know that they were talking to a 'professional' and this woman was supposed to be able to help them. Santana felt far from reassured.

"It's nice to meet you Noah, Santana, I'm Dr. Meade, feel free to call me Sharon if that's what makes you more comfortable." The woman introduced herself.

Puck shook her outstretched hand with his free one, Santana sneered. The hand that was holding Puck's received a tight squeeze in response, but she still didn't shake the woman's hand. The two of them sat down close to each other on the couch, Santana refusing to let go of Puck's hand. Dr. Meade sat down in an armchair across from them, a clipboard resting on her knee. She looked over some papers that she already had there and momentarily Santana wondered just what exactly Puck had told her already prior to actually coming here. After a moment of studying her papers, Dr. Meade looked up, first at Santana –receiving a glare- and then at Puck.

"Now how are we feeling today?" she asked conversationally.

Santana nearly laughed. Was this really supposed to be that stereotypical? _How are you feeling today? _Seriously, she thought those questions were only asked in therapy on TV or in movies. Puck glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but she kept up with the tight lip. She was going to avoid as much talking as she possibly could. She didn't even want to be here in the first place. Why had she agreed to this again? Puck huffed out a sigh and turned his focus to Dr. Meade.

"I'm.. alright. For the moment. Everything seems to go in phases. One second I'm just completely normal, then the smallest things set me off. Like someone will say something or do something and even if it's really nothing all that bad, it just gets to me and I snap. I don't know why." He explained.

The Latina's eyebrows raised a little bit. She was surprised Puck was actually saying anything at all either. Sure, it had been his idea for them to come do this, but he had never really been one for expressing how he was really feeling either. Sometimes he still had trouble doing it with just her, and the two of them told each other everything.

"Why do you think that these small things push you to that snapping point? Like, explain to me what it is you're feeling when you reach that point." Dr. Meade said.

Puck swallowed and it was obvious to Santana that he was holding back some kind of emotion that was all too frequent for the both of them lately. She hadn't seen him cry in years and it seemed the majority of crying he had done in his life had happened in the past month and a half. She felt a familiar stinging in her own eyes, but blinked several times and ground her teeth together. She was going for defiance here. If she started crying then she would have to talk and she wasn't doing that.

"Anger, definitely." Puck said finally, "Then comes this like, overwhelming feeling of hurt, or sadness maybe. I know I just try to turn everything into anger because I'm a dude and dudes aren't supposed to hurt and cry like a bunch of girls, but it's hard. I yell at people and say really awful things to them just to keep myself from breaking down again."

Santana squeezed onto Puck's hand tightly, finding it more difficult to keep her tears back now. Dr. Meade turned her attention to her.

"And how do you feel? Today, or about what Puck's just said?" she asked.

Santana met the woman's eyes for a moment and then tilted her chin up just slightly, remaining silent. Puck sighed heavily and pulled his hand away from hers. That in itself nearly made her give up on holding back crying. But instead she went the alternate route and folded her arms across her chest, slumping back against the cushions of the couch. Dr. Meade nodded slowly with a sigh before writing something down on the stupid clipboard of hers and turning her attention back to Puck.

"Where do you think these feelings come from? Do you think they stem directly from the fact that you lost Faith or do you think they're pent up from the past as well?" she asked.

Both Puck and Santana winced at the mention of Faith. Dr. Meade wrote something down on her clipboard and looked back at Puck again expectantly.

"I-I think it does stem from the umm.. from losing Faith." He was so hesitant about actually saying the words. It was like if he didn't say them there was no way there could actually be truth to them. "I've never really felt like this before.."

"This angry?"

"Well yeah kinda, but.. just everything in general." Puck paused to let out a sigh and run his hand over his head. "It just seems like everything's kinda blown up, ya know? First, I made the biggest mistake of my life sophomore year in getting not only my best friend's girl, but my girlfriend's best friend pregnant. Then I do something that's like right but not exactly right by getting the girl I'm in love with pregnant, but you know, we're still in high school and we still have a damn lot of growing up to do. Then we decide we're gonna do this thing and raise a baby and get married and we go through all of it and… for what?"

His voice cracked and everything Santana had been working to hold back nearly came shattering down in that instant. Her eyes blurred with the tears that were pooling in them, but she sniffled to hold back the full-fledged waterworks.

"We're married as teenagers now and we have this huge thing that we're trying to deal with, but we have no idea how. We're still just a couple of kids, were not supposed to be dealing with something like losing our own kid, ya know? It just… it hurts. A lot, and I don't know how to make that go away so I take it out on other people. I yelled at my best friend's girlfriend the other day at school, totally outta line, and it didn't even phase me til he got in my face about it."

Santana raised her eyebrows. She hadn't heard anything from him or Quinn about him yelling at her. She wondered what he had said to the blonde. It must have been pretty bad if Sam had made himself involved, Sam usually tended to do his best to avoid conflict. And the two of them were best friends so they hardly ever fought period. It must have been pretty bad.

"Santana, do you have anything you want to contribute, any feelings about all of this you want to share? Maybe even feelings of your own?" Dr. Meade asked.

The girl did her best to keep the look of defiance she had kept on her face the entire time so far there now, but it faltered just slightly. She kept her arms folded across her chest and averted her eyes from the woman's to look down at the floor. She thought she had made it pretty clear by now that she wasn't going to be doing any talking, but apparently the lady liked to push her luck.

"Now Noah, how do you feel about this lack of response and talking on Santana's part?" she asked, motioning toward her with the pen in her hand.

Santana nearly scowled at the therapist, but kept some kind of restraint on it. Puck let out a dry laugh that reminded her a lot of the other morning when he had lashed out at her. She nearly shuttered just thinking about that.

"I don't get her. She won't talk to me, she won't talk to her best friend, she won't talk to you. I-I'm really trying. I go to school every day even though it's really hard even giving a shit –'scuse the language- but I do. I go to class, I go to glee club, I go to football practice. I know I lash out at people sometimes, but at least I'm _talking_. When I lash out at people everything just comes out all at once, and I know that's not a good way to do that, but it's better than not at all." He shrugged with one shoulder. "I hate that she won't talk to me. She's being Santana though, she's being difficult."

Santana winced.

"I wish she would open up and let me in, but she doesn't seem to understand that shutting herself off like she is isn't helping anything. Her or otherwise. I hate that I can sit here and say all this in front of you and all she's doing is sitting there being stubborn."

He wasn't even talking directly to her and Santana could feel the hurt that his words were making her feel. The words themselves hurt, but the way he said them too. It wasn't that he was angry or frustrated like he had been the other morning, now he was _sad. _Like her not talking about things was hurting him or something. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times as he spared her a glance before he looked away from her again and she felt her jaw quiver a little. This was even worse than she could have possibly imagined it would be. Dr. Meade turned to look at her again and she almost snapped at the woman to save it, but she held her tongue.

"Now, the both of you have been through more than any teenager should. You both went through the process of a pregnancy at far too young an age, but you both made the decision –you both stepped up and acted like adults- and said that you were going to get married and you were going to go to school and keep the baby and take care of her. Now I know that you've lost that child-" Puck and Santana both flinched, that didn't seem to be going away anytime soon, "and I know that is one of the hardest things for a parent to go through, and you two are so young it's even harder. I have had a fair share of patients come in to talk to me about things that are exactly the same as what the two of you are here for, or things like it. It's never easy, for them or even for me, to be quite honest."

The Latina nearly rolled her eyes. She wasn't even sure what this lady was rambling about it. It didn't seem to hold any relevance to her or Puck at the moment.

"What I'm trying to say here is that, this is a hard time for the both of you. It's a time where you both need to think of each other and not just yourselves, you need to be open and speak to each other because bottling this up is not good for you at all. And you have to ask yourself, Santana, since you seem to be the one struggling with this even more so than Noah here, if you could grow up and make that adult decision to get married and have the baby and all of that, for the good of the child that you would have had, don't you think you should be able to be an adult and do your best to get through this as smoothly as possible as a mother in respect to that child?"

The woman's words combined with Puck's sniffle and the fact that he hid his eyes behind his hand broke the tear dam that Santana had tried to keep up. She felt a few tears roll slowly down her cheeks as she bit down hard on her bottom lip. She nodded slowly though, just once, but it was the only acknowledgment she had given the therapist at all since them getting there and going into the office. Dr. Meade nodded too and wrote something down on her clipboard. She turned to Puck again, saying something about how their hour was up, but that she had another appointment set for them in a week. Puck nodded his head and stood up, looking back at Santana over his shoulder with damp eyes. He didn't reach for her hand, and that was how she knew he wasn't happy with her.

She did her best to put her defiant face back on and walked right passed him out the office door, even out the waiting room door and out into the parking lot to his truck. The drive back to their apartment was silent. Absolutely silent. It killed her. Santana hated silence, it gave her a complex, especially his silence. He walked right into the apartment, not even waiting for her to be completely out of the truck. She slammed the passenger side door closed and followed him. He was kicking off his shoes in the bedroom when she came in, having already slammed the front door behind her.

"So are you just gonna be mad at me now?" she snapped.

"You didn't even try Santana." He snapped back, keeping his back to her. "All I asked was for you to give it a shot with me, see if it would help, and you just sat there and glared the entire time."

She folded her arms across her chest, "It's not exactly easy for me to go talking to some stranger Puck."

He turned around toward her quickly, the combination of anger and hurt on his face nearly made her cower away from him.

"You think it was easy for _me _to say all that I did? That's what you fucking do in therapy Santana, you talk. Even if you don't want to, you talk. You think I wanted to sit there and let all that out to some random chick I don't even know? Then with you sitting there acting like a stubborn little kid on top of it. No!" he threw his hands up in exasperation and she flinched.

He stared at her for a second, his jaw tightly clenched before he huffed out a sigh, his shoulders slumping. She heard him mumble something that sounded like 'this isn't how things are supposed to be' but she couldn't quite make it out all the way because he had turned away from her again to sit on the edge of their bed and hold his head in his hands. She hesitated for a moment, chewing on the inside of her lip in thought, before she moved toward him and pushed his shoulders back so he let go of his head and looked up at her. Thankfully he didn't snap at her or push her away, his hands actually moved to rest at her waist.

"I'm sorry." She said softly.

Puck nodded slowly, "I know. So am I."

She didn't want things to be this way, this constant back and forth. She didn't feel like she was ready for the things he was putting himself through by going to school every day, but a part of her knew too that she needed to do _something_. If she continued on in the way that she was, the bad between the two of them would just keep escalating and the very idea of that terrified her. She moved one of the hands she'd had on his shoulder to the back of his neck, letting her fingers play with the back of his Mohawk a little bit.

"I-I don't want to do that again. I don't want to have to go sit in that office again." She said quietly, shaking her head.

Puck stayed silent for a moment and looked passed her in thought. She bit down on her lip, hoping that he wasn't going to yell at her again. Finally his eyes moved back to meet hers and he nodded once.

"Fine. I won't make you go to therapy again. If-" Santana stiffened. She didn't think she liked where this was going, "You come back to school."

Yep. She definitely didn't like where this was going.


End file.
